Obstacles to Community Policing Implementation.

Community policing has been designed in the United States after the 1960s riots to address the conflict between police and minorities in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Many countries facing similar challenges have developed community policing programs.

Yet there is (always) a discrepancy between the design and objectives of a policy and its actual implementation. This paper is about the implementation of community policing in France and the United States and rests on 4 case studies in Paris, Lyon, New York and Los Angeles. The paper argues that police culture and the rise of managerial policies are not the only obstacles to the implementation of community policing. Institutional factors depending on national contexts such as modes of recruitment, career management and trade-union politics play a considerable role in shaping policy.